University of Catania, academic year 2026–27 · 42 hours, 6 ECTS
Alfio Bonanno
The course runs from the plasma state and Coulomb collisions through kinetic theory, fluid descriptions and MHD to dynamo theory in the Sun, stars, planets and galaxies. It is organised in modules of one or more academic hours; two mathematical modules (MA, MB) introduce the tools where they are first needed.
Handouts (one page per slide) of the modules taught so far. New modules are added after each lecture.
| Module | Title | Content | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The plasma state | |||
| M01a | The plasma state: screening and oscillations | Screening and plasma oscillations | PDF 1.9 MB |
| M01b | The plasma state: regimes and ionisation | Regimes and ionisation (Saha) | PDF 3.7 MB |
| 2. Coulomb collisions, resistivity and bremsstrahlung | |||
| M02a | Coulomb collisions | Coulomb scattering, ln Λ, collision frequencies | PDF 0.6 MB |
| M02b | Resistivity, runaway and bremsstrahlung | Resistivity, runaway, bremsstrahlung | PDF 0.9 MB |
| 3. Charged-particle orbits and drifts | |||
| M03a | Orbits: gyration and drifts | Gyration, E×B, force and polarisation drifts | PDF 0.2 MB |
| M03b | Orbits: inhomogeneous fields and fluid currents | Grad-B and curvature drifts; fluid currents | PDF 0.2 MB |
| 4. Adiabatic invariants, mirrors and Fermi acceleration | |||
| M04a | Magnetic mirrors and the first invariant | Magnetic mirrors, μ invariance, loss cone | PDF 1.6 MB |
| M04b | Adiabatic invariants, radiation belts and Fermi acceleration | Actions, Van Allen belts, Fermi acceleration | PDF 1.2 MB |
| 5. From Klimontovich to Vlasov | |||
| M05a | From particles to the Vlasov equation | Exact microscopic description, BBGKY hierarchy and the Vlasov limit | PDF 1.1 MB |
| M05b | The Vlasov–Maxwell system | Vlasov–Maxwell system, Moments, Cold-beam instabilities | PDF 0.5 MB |
| Mathematics A | |||
| MA | Distributions and singular integrals | Distributions, weak solutions and shocks, principal value, Sokhotski–Plemelj, Laplace transform and analytic continuation | PDF 0.6 MB |
| 6. Linear waves and Landau damping | |||
| M06a | Landau damping | Landau's initial-value problem, Plasma dispersion function | PDF 0.3 MB |
Slides © 2026 Alfio Bonanno, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. Images by third parties are excluded and keep their own licences: see the image credits.
Last update: 27 October 2026